Guest creates new account to ask for refund then ghosts me

[Florent84]

Hello all!

A guest booked my appartment about 2 weeks ago to stay for 5 days starting today (Monday September 14). The guest has only one comment from March 2020.

On Saturday afternoon two days ago I got a message from another account created in September 2020 telling me that they are the people who booked for this Monday, that they can't come due to a family issue, but that they would try to have friends taking their place and if it was ok. I was away for the week-end and didn't see the message, then on Sunday received another message telling me that their friends would not come, and that they were very sorry but wanted to know if I could refund them at least partof the trip.

I told them to cancel directly on the site (my cancellation policy is moderate) and that they would 50% back this way (I also copy-pasted this response to the account that made the original reservation). They have ghosted me ever since and it is now 7 PM on the night of the reservation.

This smell strongly like a scam, but I am not sure what to do or what their endgame is. Is it possible that they are trying to get me to refund them some money privately while they block their payment to Airbnb? Is it even possible for them not to pay me if they do not cancel and the days just keep passing?

Thanks a lot for any help!!

Florent

[Emiel1]

@Florent84 

Access to the original account is needed to perform a cancellation and receive the refund (if any)

I would have asked them: why do you not use this account ?

Offourse only the guest who booked the reservation can stay, not their friends

I guess there is some trouble with the original account and they can not reach Airbnb to solve it (or to cancel the reservation for them).

They probably wiil never show up and reservation continues as normal, including payout.

[Yadira22]

@Florent84 

Calmly explain that all exchanges of monies, including refunds is directly handled by Airbnb only. 

Contact Airbnb: https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Help/Contact-Airbnb-A-Community-Help-Guide-UPDATED/td-p/413245

Cancel booking: https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/169/how-do-i-cancel-my-reservation-for-a-place-to-stay

Also write to Airbnb regarding this, as for them to advice you and have it noted down your side of the events. Hope this helps. 🙂

[Florent84]

Thanks to both of you for the replies!

I did reach out to Airbnb and asked them to help me cancel, and they told me that they would do it 24h after reaching out to the guests. Then yesterday at 11PM I received a two-line message making no mention of the previous exchanges I had with the other account: "Sry for not responding before, I am coming tomorrow, At the max can you welcome me?"

He doesn't mention the second person (a woman) who contacted me from the other account and was supposedly coming with him, and now two days have already passed out of a 5-day reservation. He apparently only contacted me after Airbnb got in touch with him, but he apparently has no problem using his account. I would have much preferred cancelling the whole thing, all of this is very strange, but I will call him tomorrow and see what happens.

[Sarah977]

@Florent84  Don't call him!  You should keep all communications with him on the Airbnb messaging so you have a record of what is said between you. Especially in a situation where you have reason to think you're being scammed, this is really important.